Javid pledge to end devolution deadlock
Javid: Less bureaucracy please
Local government Secretary Sajid Javid has pledged to work with council leaders to end Yorkshire’s devolution deadlock by the end of the year.
Mr Javid rejected the ‘One Yorkshire’ devolution plan in its current form but did not rule out the idea of striking a single agreement for the whole region.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT Secretary Sajid Javid has pledged to work with council leaders to end Yorkshire’s devolution deadlock by the end of the year.
Mr Javid rejected the ‘One Yorkshire’ devolution plan in its current form but did not rule out the idea of striking a single agreement for the whole region.
He also left open the possibility of other arrangements such as a West Yorkshire or Leeds City Region ‘devolution deal’ alongside the existing agreement covering the Sheffield City Region area.
Mr Javid set out the Government’s position in a letter to West Yorkshire council leaders which has been welcomed for providing “clear criteria” for future proposals.
Next month, areas around the country, including Greater Manchester and Tees Valley, will hold elections for new ‘metro-mayors’ who will take on powers in areas such as transport and skills.
But the election of a Sheffield City Region mayor has been delayed for a year after a legal challenge and tensions between South Yorkshire councils while council leaders, MPs and the Government have been unable to agree arrangements covering the rest of the region.
In his letter, Mr Javid says: “There is clearly enthusiasm for further devolution in Yorkshire, and I hope to see progress made.”
He asks for options to be drawn up and a meeting with council leaders “with a view to concluding a deal as soon as possible this year”.
The so-called ‘One Yorkshire’ plan was floated earlier this year which would see a single mayor for the whole region working with three combined authorities made up of council leaders from different areas.
Northern Powerhouse Minister Andrew Percy has previously dismissed the idea but Mr Javid’s letter leaves the door open to a single Yorkshire deal if it involves
There is clearly enthusiasm for further devolution in Yorkshire Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid
a mayor and a single combined authority.
Combined authorities already exist in South and West Yorkshire to work on issues which cross council boundaries.
The letter says proposals must be “consistent” with the election of a Sheffield City Region mayor in 2018 but ‘One Yorkshire’ supporters will argue electing a mayor for the whole region in May next year would meet that criteria.
It had previously been thought the Government would insist on the Sheffield City Region election going ahead and press council leaders in the rest of Yorkshire to pursue the ‘Greater Yorkshire’ proposal bringing West, North and East Yorkshire under a single mayor.
However, Mr Javid’s letter stops short of imposing a solution and says proposals must be “locally-led” leaving the way open for districts to come together in a variety of combinations if a One Yorkshire deal cannot be agreed.
In his response, West Yorkshire Combined Authority chairman Peter Box welcomed the “clear criteria” set out by Mr Javid.
He wrote: “We are all frustrated by the collective lack of progress, so I support strongly your desire to conclude a deal as soon as possible this year.”
Coun Box, the leader of Wakefield Council, told Mr Javid that achieving a deal this year would require “meaningful progress soon”.
Business leaders in Yorkshire have been increasingly vocal in recent months over the failure to agree devolution deals.
There are concerns the powers given to new mayors in other parts of the country will give them major economic advantages.
THE CANDIDNESS of Communities Secretary Sajid Javid is welcome when it comes to Yorkshire devolution. He’s right – there is no consensus at present, but the current impasse does need to be resolved and he is personally supportive of ongoing efforts to do so.
The Cabinet minister’s intervention is also helpful because he provides some much-needed clarity on the Government’s own intentions as rival regions prepare to go to the polls next month to elect their first metro-mayors to spearhead growth strategies and the like.
Though Mr Javid is correct to say that “devolution has to be locally led”, he is also within his rights to express serious reservations about any overtly bureaucratic proposals that dilute accountability. For the record, the so-called One Yorkshire model proposes a single mayor taking responsibility for the West, North and East Ridings with three separate combined authorities looking after the day-to-day interests of each region.
Mr Javid’s point – and it is a reasonable one in a county where there is no appetite for unnecesarry tiers of officialdom– is that the Government believes any devolved area should have one mayor answering directly to one authority. Rightly or wrongly, he clearly believes that this latter model has the potential to deliver the greatest benefits.
Though the Minister is being mindful not to impose his wishes, Yorkshire’s leaders should, at the very least, be meeting – and sooner rather than later – to determine the powers that they would like a mayor to have, and whether a leadership structure can be put in place which reflects the diversity of this region’s economy and geography as well as competing political interests. If they do so, they might just have a chance of reaching the consensus which remains so elusive – and the source of so much exasperation.